Loretta Laroche: Don’t get worked up about the weather

Loretta Laroche

Friday

Mar 28, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 28, 2008 at 9:56 AM

Well, says Get A Life columnist Loretta Roche, we’ve officially entered into spring. It doesn’t feel like it yet, but there are definite signs. I see green trying to poke its way through the earth in my garden, the birds are definitely revving up, and the sun feels warmer.

Well, we’ve officially entered into spring. It doesn’t feel like it yet, but there are definite signs. I see green trying to poke its way through the earth in my garden, the birds are definitely revving up, and the sun feels warmer.

Although I’m not fixated on the weather, I’m glad we’re through winter because we’ll get some relief from the “winter whiners.”

I have lived in the Northeast all my life, and it never ceases to amaze me how much effort is put into discussing the weather, especially in recent years. I often wonder if we wouldn’t be better off if we didn’t know until we woke up what that day had in store for us, weather-wise. Then we’d just deal with it.

I remember a time when that’s exactly what went on. Of course, as a kid it was exciting to wake up to snow and the possibility of staying home from school. But for school to be canceled the weather had to be akin to an Antarctic blizzard, with dogsleds as the only transportation possible.

People just seemed to brave the elements differently. They just sucked it up and went their merry ways. Today we need to know how many inches, will it be mixed with rain, how big the flakes will be, and will it or won’t it go out to sea.

Then, on TV, there are hundreds of shots of clogged highways, abandoned vehicles and individuals shoveling or snowblowing their sidewalks.

Roving TV reporters interview individuals carving their way through the ice and snow as if they were looking for answers to world peace. The interviewees always seem to be in shock that the weather is doing what it’s doing.

We seem to forget the following: If it’s winter, it usually snows or it’s cold; spring brings variable weather; summer is mostly hot and humid; and fall is temperate and sometimes chilly.

Of course, it’s not always that way. You might get a 60-degree day in January or February.

I find it remarkably metaphorical. Nothing is perfect and nothing stays the same.

This flies in the face of what we humans strive for, which is to have things the way we think they should be. Weather, work, family, friends, traffic, kids, animals – they can all be unpredictable.

The best gift you can give yourself is to learn to accept the unexpected. Believe me, you’ll be much happier.